It’s just scaremongering. Bernie has been against the engines since the regulations were unveiled, and has taken every opportunity to criticise them. Don’t buy into the pessimism – you’re just enabling him.

The same was said when we went from 3.0 liter V10s to the current 2.4 liter V8s. If we take Bahrain as an example, times dropped by less than 2 seconds in qualifying. Other rule changes have further slowed the grid down since, but I remember hardly anyone spoke of the difference in laptimes halfway in the 2006 season.

Any rule change is met with talks of laptimes dropping anywhere between 3 and 10 seconds. Look up some of the panic people experienced when the grooved tyres were introduced.

How is Berie a pessimist? We’re talking facts here. The V6-engines have a rev limit of 15.000 that the engines are simply not going to rev to because of the fuel flow limit, they’ll probably be somewhere in the 10.000-12.500 range. They’ll produce about the same amount of horse power as the current V8-engines, while the cars are getting heavier next year. Meanwhile the cars will lose a serious amount of downforce because of the narrower front wing and the lack of beamwing. I said it before and I’ll say it again, I bet the cars will be a lot slower than FIA intended them to be and forthcoming years will be dedicated to getting the cars back up to speed again.

Mind you, Bernie has stupid ideas but I’m on his side when it comes to this, F1 should remain the pinnacle of motorsport no matter what. No 21st-century Formula 1 car should have to be about as heavy and slow as an Indycar. Bernie hated to see the V10’s go as well, he knows as good as anyone else that F1 is a product that needs to be sold to the public. I personally find it more and more likely to witness the demise of F1 in the next 2 decades or so, making way for a new GP1 formula or something like that.

I agree with @Magnificent-Geoffrey here. New gearboxes, new engines, TERS, and hopefully the end of those blasted exaust-blown diffusers! The cars will be slower from the outset, they always are. On most circuits the cars now are still not as quick as the old V10 cars, but surely that just means slightly longer races, right? Can’t complain about that!

The V8’s went from 19 000 RPM to 18 000 RPM, maybe with the V6 engines it will be the other way around, going from a lower RPM limit to a higher one

I myself don’t find myself inclined to comment on those new engines just yet. I’ve read about 20 articles about them since they were announced, each one disagreeing with the other. As always it is something you just need to wait for and hope for the best. F1 has had V6 turbo’s before let’s just wait and see what the teams come up with.

I think you people are wrong this time. They are removing the entire beamwing and narrowing the front wing this time around, that means there’s less bodywork to develop. How can non-existant bodywork be improved to produce more downforce than they currently do? At least in 2009 when the rear wings got a whole lot smaller, the front wings were enlarged to compensate. The cars were changed so badly that certain areas lost their development potential, while others gained importance and are now being worked on much more than they were pre-2009. There’s no compensation this time around, just a whole lot less downforce PLUS cars that will be heavier in their entirety. Where are teams supposed to be gaining downforce and thus time after this year? Seriously, I think people are making illusions, there’s only so much teams can do when FIA keeps limiting the freedom of design. The cars WILL be much slower and while I’m sure there are tenths to gain, there’s no way they’ll claw back 5 seconds.

@Roald – I’m sorry, but do you have a degree and experience in aerodynamic engineering? Because if not, then you’re just making assumptions. The FIA have constantly tried to slow the cars down in the past few years, and where has it lead us? Oh yeah, to lots of very innovative designs – F Ducts, double diffusers, double DRS, drag reduction device, exhaust blown diffusers, coanda exhausts and now FRIC.
I have no doubt that even if the new formula will be slower from the off, the Adrian Neweys of the world will continue to create innovative machines that will continue to regain lost time.
It is stupid to speculate how much time will be lost before we have even seen one of these cars, so it should be left for now, and then re-evaluated in a year’s time, when we have more data to analyse.